[MUSIC] Beyond their use for telling stories that encourage societal change, media campaigns can also be effective at changing behavior simply by informing individuals of what their neighbors are doing thus changing their empirical expectation. It has been shown experimentally that informing home owners about how much electricity they were using in relation to other homeowners in the area. Led those who were above average to curve their usage. And those who were below average to do the opposite. Everyone appeared to trend towards their updated empirical expectation. However, by signaling normative information in addition to this factual information by adding a smiling emoticon next to a home owner electricity usage if it was below average, or a frowning one if it was above average. Those who were above average continue to reduce their consumption, while those who are below average maintained their originally low energy usage. This approach would not be effective in situations where individuals already know how much energy is effectively used and how much people care about saving energy. Emphasizing the percentage of people engaging in good behavior, assuming [LAUGH] it is occurring in large numbers, may encourage those who are not yet engaging in it to join the crowd. For example, while 25% of Indian teacher and 19% of Bangladeshi teachers are missing from school each day. Between 75 and 81% show up. Where teachers have reasons to believe that teacher attendance rates are low signaling the comparatively high attendance rates should be much more powerful than a simple message telling teachers they should improve their attendance. The normative message may give the wrong impression, that a large number of teachers are indeed absentees. If we must tell teachers to improve their performance, then it is reasonable for them to infer that many teachers are not behaving as they should, causing teachers to reinforce their negative expectations. Positive information about real attendance rates could be effectively disseminated through any number of media. Many other stylist make very clear the power of empirical expectation and how normative expectation by themselves may not induce norm congruent behavior. Just sending a normative message may be interpreted as a sign that people usually do not conform to the desired behavior, encouraging for the transgressions. Combining empirical and normative messages is much more effective. Another successful use of the media is exemplified by the Saleema campaign. In Sudan an uncut woman is commonly termed ghalfa, a pejorative word that carries connotation of prostitution, promiscuity and impurity. Even if parents are aware of the negative health consequences of female genital cutting, they often continue to cut their daughters in order to protect them from the negative social consequences of being ghalfa. The Saleema campaign was designed in large part to re-brand women who have not undergone female genital cutting as Saleema. Saleema is an Arabic name that means whole, intact, healthy in body and mind in a God-given condition. The campaign primary tactic was to encourage the abandonment of female genital cutting by re-branding uncut woman in a positive socially acceptable light. This tactic require no change to the ghalfa schema at all, only the creation of an alternative one. The initiative featured both educational elements that informed people of the nature of being Saleema, which serve to create the noble Saleema schema. And the elements that spread the belief that many people endorse the Saleema perspective which help combat pluralistic ignorance. The initiative was public in nature and was broadcasted via radio, television and poster advertisements. The media discuss the many benefits of being Saleema, and how change is a good thing, thereby promoting Saleema without directly damning or discrediting what many consider to be a venerable tradition. Those who join agreed to keep their daughters uncut and sign a pledge of their support that is prominently displayed at the hospital. All these clear signals of collective support serve to inform the unconvinced that about a shift in perspective that is taking place. Without these outward signals of support, Sudanese people may privately embrace the Saleema perspective but outwardly say nothing out of fear that their fellow citizens hold on to the traditional understanding of female genital cutting. Changing a population beliefs towards a practice is a good first step. But if such a population behavior is contingent upon what they expect their peers do and approve of, then changes in personal perspective will not be sufficient to change behavior. The change achieved through the Saleema campaign is a strong example of the book keeping model of schema change. Every time one hears a publicized endorsement of the campaign, every time one sees someone wearing the Saleema clothing and every time one sees a pledge of support or hear someone talking about the Saleema perspective positively, the old stereotype of the typical Sudanese who endorses female genital cutting is challenged. These are a multitude of mild to moderately discrepant instances. Recall that the more prototypical a schema defiant piece of information is, the more difficult it will be to explain a way the discrepant information as an exception. Let's now listen to a description of the features of the Saleema campaign that made it so successful. >> The Saleema Communication Initiative had a number of components. It's used a lot of mass media, radio discussions, radio sports, songs. It's used ad or billboards, really created a lot of visibility around Saleema and the Saleema chalice. It had a nice and it was a set of very nice bright colors. Red, orange, greens, yellows very visible and very bright to show the new future of the little girl. And this was used to brand everywhere so it was a big PR and social marketing campaign. And then the third level was a community engagement, where the communities came together to discuss Saleema and the new discourse around the uncut girl. >> And the [INAUDIBLE] youth was basically how we can have a new discourse of discussions and debates among family members, community members, and between all sectors of the society in way which raises questions, more than finding answers immediately. By introducing or trying to link the traditional values that were related to being uncut, were related to being cut to be reinforced by a new system of accepting the same values but relating to a different behavior. >> One of the things that has made the Sudan campaign against the FGC successful is maybe the multi faceted approach, using mass media to build credibility around the issue but also engaging communities. Getting whole communities to declare against cutting. And the other key point is also not going out to attack people not focusing on the effect of FGC, but rather trying to create a new dialog around the uncut girls so that it becomes acceptable that people see that it's okay not to cut the girl and it's not as negative as it was seen in the past.
